Vanilla Takes PNG By Storm

Vanilla...providing Papua New Guineans an alternative income source.

Some call it the "wonder crop", others call it "green gold". Commonly known by its trade name‹vanilla‹is the crop of the moment in Papua New Guinea. The crop, which is experiencing a sudden unprecedented boom, has taken the country by storm. It has created a mania, a hype and a hive of feverish madness that has gripped the nation.

But the nerve centre of all this is Wewak town, the capital of East Sepik province. It's all happening there.

As one local newspaper puts it, in Wewak and in East Sepik, vanilla is causing banks to run out of cash, it is causing shop shelves to empty as fast as they are stocked. Car yards, fuel and alcohol are making bumper sales and fuel has run out a number of times in Wewak.

Motoring company Ela Motors was reported to have sold over K500,000 worth of vehicles.

The crop is fetching simple village farmers far more money than any crop has ever done in the past, going as high as K600 per kilogramme for super A grade.

Vanilla has also attracted public servants and others from the private sector in Wewak to return to their villages to farm vanilla.

Although vanilla has been grown in the country for a number of years, its production and export has never reached any significant level until one Allan Bird and two other young men from the province decided to encourage its massive farming.

Bird and his colleagues also went out of their way to establish export markets for the crop.

The result of their efforts is the boom. For Bird, in particular, the result of his effort also nearly caused the biggest upset in last year's national elections.

Bird, who stood against Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare in the East Sepik province regional seat, went close to beating him, all because of his leading role in the vanilla business.

Bird refused to discuss this feat. He also refused to accept direct credit for the vanilla boom.

However, since the government is now only playing a catch-up game, no official position could be established on the magnitude of the vanilla industry in East Sepik and also in the country.

An estimated 5000 cuttings of vanilla were being planted each day in the East Sepik as the boom spreads across the province like wildfire.

Wewak-based department of agriculture and livestock advisor Eddy Liru was reported as saying that people from the foothills, the plains, coastal areas, islands and even along the banks of the Sepik River, are now planting vanilla.

This expansion of vanilla farming is further encouraged by positive news about international markets for Papua New Guinea vanilla.

A local exporter from East Sepik, Lesley Yani said the uniqueness and sweet aroma of its vanilla has found favour in the North American markets.

Yani said industrial end-users are now looking to PNG despite fears that the world's biggest vanilla supplier Madgascar, could hit the global market as early as November, thus luring back all its traditional clients.

Yani said his exporting company is linked to a group of companies that already has a lot of interest in PNG vanilla.

The group‹Aust & Hachmann (Canada)‹has offices in Hamburg in Germany, Guatemala in South America and Madgascar.

"We generated a sale of an average of K1.3 million gross earnings so far and we are expecting to reach K2 million by the end of the year," Yani said. Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, the success stories of the East Sepik farmers have encouraged others to do the same.

In parts of the Central province where vanilla has been farmed with increasing interest, the race is on among farmers to find buyers for its vanilla.

In Morobe province, where vanilla is grown in increasing quantity, farmers' efforts are boosted with the announcement by Governor Luther Wenge to distribute 100,000 cuttings of vanilla to farmers in the province. Everywhere else, the same excitement is taking hold.